Paul Erdős was born on March 26, 1913 2013 a hundred years ago. This picture (from Ehud Friedgut’s homepage) was taken in September ’96 in a Chinese restaurant in Warsaw, a few days before Paul Erdős passed away. The other diners are Svante Janson, Tomasz Łuczack and Ehud Friedgut. Erdős’ influence is felt everywhere in combinatorics, mathematics as a whole, and this blog as well. (A few more links: my most decorated MO answer is about Erdős, a recent heated discussion on the “two cultures in mathematics,” a new post on Erdős discrepancy problem on GLL, and, most important, a link to Erdős centennial conference, in Budapest July 1-5, 2013. Join the celebration!)

on of the greats yet also eminently human. he had a sense and uncanny intuition for important math before anybody else realized how important it was. so in some ways, a mathematical visionary, but never based on his editorializing or commentary about math [which was nearly nonexistent] but solely through his theorems! a zen math master! see also erdos100, tribute to a brilliant contrarian with lots of links